The BlackMoney Inheritance
by Padre Pio
Summary: Lysander is a PVP champion, no stranger to hazards. But when his brother died and bequeaths him a wealth of assets, Lysander finds that fortune can sometimes be deadly.
1. CHAPTER I: The Vanishing Kin

_Battlesmith Lysander BlackMoney is a PVP champion--- no stranger to hazards. But when his brother, Theophilus BlackMoney dies and bequeaths him a wealth of assets--- including a stunning array of very expensive and extremely rare headgears--- Lysander finds he's in a very tight and very deadly sort of spot.  
Because someone is on his tail. Someone who wants the fortune Lysander is only now discovering. And this dangerous, unknown foe is determined that Lysander will not live long enough to enjoy it. _

**The BlackMoney Inheritance**

**by ****Padre Pio**

**CHAPTER I: The Vanishing Kin**

_Fortune is a great deceiver. She sells very dear the things she seems to give us. --- Vincent Voiture, Blacksmith_

**I INHERITED** my brother's life. Inherited his assets, his business, his enemies, his pets, and his mistress. I inherited my brother's life, and it brought me fortune; but it nearly killed me.

I was twenty-five at the time, a good-for-nothing blacksmith, and still hobbling about on makeshift crutches owing to a serious disagreement with a raging minorous. If you've never felt your ankle explode, don't try messing with those walking pounds of muscle. As usual, the injury had been done by the half ton weight of the minorous' gigantic feet descending squarely on my boot on the solid brick floor of a Morrocan pyramid.

Two days after this, while I was reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that I was going to miss at least two weeks of leveling up and with them possibly my last chance of entering the Annual Pronteran PVP Fighting Contest (I still needed 20 experience points to qualify), I opened the flimsy wooden door of my rented room at the Morroc Inn for the tenth time that morning and found it was not, as I'd expected, another friend calling in to commiserate.

The person standing outside my threshold was a woman. She was garbed in a very plain, brown dress overlapped by a milky-white apron at the front--- the all-too-familiar regalia of the Kafra Messenger Service.

"Mr. Lysander BlackMoney?" Her voice was clipped and polite.

I wearily nodded in assent.

"Right." She was both brisk and hesitant. "We have you listed," she said, taking a cursory glance at the piece of parchment she held in her hands, "as your brother Theophilus' **next of kin**."

Those three words, I thought with an accelerating heart, must be the most ominous of the language.

"Your brother is at the St. Grunewald Infirmary," she went on.

At least he was alive, I thought numbly. Barely alive. Once a patient is brought to St. Grunewald's, it simply means the patient's chance of recovery is nil.

"And the Healers think you should be told."

I said slowly, not wanting to know, "What happened?"

"He was involved in a serious accident," she said. "He has suffered multiple injuries. The Healers have tried to revive him but he's still unconscious up to now."

"I'll be there at once," I said. I thanked her, not knowing what for, and slowly closed the door, taking the shock physically in lightheadedness and a constricted throat. _He would be alright,_ I told myself. _But was I believing a lie? Please God, I hope not._

I shut out the anxiety to concentrate on the mundane practicality of travelling about a hundred and fifty miles across country---from the dust-ridden Morroc town where I lived, to the lofty Pronteran capital---with a crunched ankle. _Damn that minorous_, I thought angrily. Being pounded by its gigantic feet at a time like this doesn't really come handy.

I was still on a pensive mood when a loud _bang_ reverberated around the obscenely naked walls of my bare-backed room. A thick pillar of smoke rapidly formed near the old, dilapidated four-posted bed. A few seconds passed and the smoke trailed away, revealing a fine, chiseled figure of a youngish man. The figure spun around three times before stopping abruptly. He landed on his feet shakily, clutching the corner post of the bed for support.

"Sorry 'bout the smoke, sire." An ear-splitting grin spread across his clean-shaven face. "Guess I'll have to practice a little bit more," he added, almost as an afterthought. "Stupid cutbacks! Have to do the messenger service service too! They just COULDN'T get anyone else... Anyway, I'm here to fetched you, sire."

My brows furrowed. "I beg your pardon?" I asked, my voice showing some irritation. In normal times, I would have knocked his brains off for intruding the privacy of my room and appearing in such an unorthodox fashion but my broken ankle prevented me from doing so.

"Ooops!" that ear-splitting grin again. "Sorry, forgot to introduce myself. Ranulf Flaherty. Healer-in-training at St. Grunewald's."

_St. Grunewald's? Nothing could have happened by now_, I thought, trying to convince myself.

With an obvious nervousness in my shaky voice, I asked "Is he alright? My brother, I mean..."

"...uhm... that's why you need to come at once, sire," he abruptly replied. The stupid grin slashed across his face vanished and was replaced by a deeply anxious look.

_He's trying to conceal something_, I thought wildly, at the same time, dreading what it could be.

The healer-in-training fished out a shining blue gem from the black leather pouchbag dangling on his side. "If you're ready sire, I could cast a warp." His gentle voice awoke me from my stupor.

I nodded hesitantly. I was too numb to even utter a reply.

**WARP PORTAL!**

**A PUFF **of smoke paled the tightly packed room where we materialized, soliciting some angry looks from the other people inside. There was a large notice posted on the gray stone wall that read: WARPING STATION. TO AVOID ACCIDENTS, ONLY CERTIFIED **HEALERS** AND **KAFRA MESSENGERS** ARE ALLOWED TO USE THIS AREA. I shot him an accusing glare.

The healer-in-training just gave me a furtive smile, and then whispered soflty, "Don't worry, I have special clearance."

He grabbed my hand and we fought and shoved our way to the exit, finally emerging into another room. This time, it was empty except for a very large wooden chest lying near the door. The healer-in-training approached the chest and lifted the lid. "Now you see, sire, this is no ordinary chest." To my astonishment he raised the base, which came up like another lid. I could see down into darkness. "There are steps. Do you see them? Go down them... and be very careful, sire. I'll follow you.."

I got into the chest (with difficulty) and lowered myself and my feet found the steps. I went down six of them. The healer-in-training handed me a candle and followed me, after shutting the lid and base of the chest.

"Where are we?" I asked. I raised the candle in the air, its yellowish light revealing a very long corridor stretching from end to end.

"This way, sire." The healer-in-training acted as though he didn't hear me, and began walking briskly. "Follow me please."

We silently tracked the dimly lighted corridor that was empty except for two Healers walking with their heads bowed down and muttering some arcane incantations.

The eerie silence worsened my feelings. It was damp and cold below and the corridor seemed endless. I had the impression of walking to my deathbed.

Suddenly we came to a halt. He motioned his hand to a richly carved wooden door in my right. "Your brother is there. I'm not allowed to come in."

I thanked him. He was about to say something but thought so otherwise, and immediately left.

With a sigh, I slowly turned the silver brass handle. I heard a soft _cluck_, and the door began to open of its own accord.

This was it---the moment that I was dreading for---just as in a nightmare, except that this was no nightmare but the actual moment of revelation. I was terrified of what the opening of the door would reveal. _My Brother!_ I thought. _Would I find him alive?_

The door opened wide.

There were only three people inside the murky room: a person I loved dearly, my bestfriend, and the last... my enemy.

And my brother was not there.


	2. Chapter II: The Rooms of Confusion

CHAPTER II: The Rooms of Confusion

_Hateful to me as the gates of Niffleheim is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. --- Dolores Ibarruri, High Priestess _

_**WHAT HAS** the world gone up to? _That was the first thought that invaded my utterly perplexed mind when I entered the room. I was still reluctantly digesting the past events that came galloping into my life and yet, another equally bewildering and confusing situation had been thrown at me, bones and all.

The room, where I entered, had no window, was devoid of any furniture and decorations, and lighted only by two blazing torches clapped on two sides of the wall. The dancing golden flames emanating from the torches threw off a blurry of whirling and disconcerted shadows across the walls, creating an aura of mystery to the otherwise nondescript room. But to my mind, the more disconcerting thing than the leaping shadows off the walls were the three silent figures huddled together at the side of the empty wooden bed.

A dancer, a healer, and an assassin: my brother's mistress, my bosom friend, and my old enemy. The three people I least expected to see were all assembled in that gloomy room. _What, in Bapho's name, are they doing here?_ I muttered. _What is going on? Where is my brother?_ So many questions were burning on my mind. I needed answers, _fast_, or my mind would blow up into a flurry of confusion.

The gentle scraping of the heavy wooden door closing slowly behind me betrayed my presence in the room. The dancer was the first to notice me. She was slouched at the edge of the wooden bed, eyes closed, and her lithe shoulders heaving up and down in a slow and torturous rhythm. When she heard the almost inaudible sound of the gently closing door, she looked up, her gaze meeting mine. _Those gray, sorrowful eyes,_ I sighed. _It haunted me still, even now._ As I locked my gaze into hers, her eyes flickered for an instant. _Was it joy of seeing me? _I asked myself. _My heart is leaping with joy, Chi Huang Fei. _I tried to tell her with my eyes.

She rose abruptly from the bed, clasping and unclasping her soft and delicate fingers. Her lovely face, illumined by the orange flames from the torches, was ghastly white, I began to notice. She was mouthing something when---

"BLOODY PORING!" Domenikos' husky voice echoed across the room. My healer friend had noticed me at last. He jumped from the bed and began striding in my direction. "Here, have a seat," he added, leading me to a solitary stone chair beside the wooden bed.

As I tried my best to feel comfortable in the stone-cold chair, I suddenly felt a sense of foreboding. An eerie feeling that made the hair in my neck stood upright---_the man behind the shadow is watching me. _I certainly knew who he was.

"---pal, you look a mess," Domenikos was saying. "Bad news, really. I do hope..." He suddenly sighed.

"Xander listen to me! Your bro---"

"Theophilus is dead." My healer friend interjected, cutting off Chi's speech. With a resigned air, Chi slumped on the bed and immediately relapsed into silence.

_Theophilus, dead. I thought... _My mind went numb. Suddenly, the room felt cold. I had the feeling of a cold gush of water slowly pouring down on me, soaking my body, and making me shiver in the chair.

"And you know what that means, BlackMoney?" at last, the man behind the shadow spoke. He sort of glided from the dark, shadowy wall towards the bed, his half-hidden face finally revealed. _Gromico Bracklehurst._ Chieftain of the most feared group of assassins in the whole kingdom---_The Brotherhood of the Tomb._ "It means... you're the next to die." His face broke into a smirk, a loathing way beyond the limit. The two slits that were his eyes were sparking with hatred as he stared at me venomously.

And the feeling was mutual. I could never forgive him for stabbing my father to death when I was still ten years old. I had been the only person who had witnessed his gruesome deed. As I stare back at those hateful eyes, memories of that fateful day came flooding into my mind. I could still smell the pungent stench of iron being melted in my father's forge on that day. _My father. _The image of his stooped figure throwing coals at the blazing furnace was as fresh to me as if I was still in the forge, watching him, admiring him.

Then the events that followed all became a blur to my young mind: The sudden apparition of a hooded stranger. The argument. And the hissing voice; that malignant, evil hissing voice. _Give me back the Helm... _the stranger was saying. _The Helm, BlackMoney._ But my father just chuckled good-humoredly. _No, I don't have what you are seeking, Miklos. _My father just turned his back on the stranger and resumed throwing coals at the furnace. Then, without a warning, the hooded stranger extracted a jeweled damascus from his bosom and plunged it into the back of my father's head. The blade made its way down with a sickening crunch, resting at the base of his spine. My father didn't have time to react. He just uttered a muffled groan and immediately fell down on the stone floor, a lifeless corpse. It was then that he noticed me, crouching at the back of a high-backed wooden chair. After pulling out the damascus from my father's back, he turned to look at me, focusing those two wicked and malignant eyes. _Those eyes. Like the voice, it was malevolent and reeking with hate._ And then he vanished, like a smoke.

I never thought I would see those hateful eyes again, nor hear that revolting voice, but here he was. In the flesh and in my brother's room.

* * *

to my insan: uhm sowe pow klahati pa lng ito sa chapter two. medyo nagloloko n nmn utak ko.heheh ayaw gumana. luv u chi! 


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